FlashForward falters this week

FlashForward - "Gimme Some Truth"

The gang heads to Washington DC to ensure they get the funding their investigation requires. Director Wedeck (Courtney B. Vance) butts heads with Senator Clemente who chairs the funding sub-committee. Meanwhile, Janis Hawk starts dating. And Olivia gets a mysterious text message regarding her husband.

I had a big problem with parts of this episode, specifically the sub-committee scenes. Benford (Joseph Fiennes) is called to testify and when he starts bringing up what he saw in his flashforward and what they've uncovered so far, he's basically ridiculed. He brings up the crows dying during the blackout and at one earlier time in Somalia. They act as if he brought up the Easter Bunny. I want to know why he doesn't simply state that NO OTHER ANIMALS AROUND THE WORLD DIED DURING THE BLACKOUT (if this is what is indeed correct, which the show hasn't stated but it's in between the lines). This one little tidbit of information about NO OTHER ANIMALS AROUND THE WORLD OTHER THAN CROWS DYING DURING THE BLACKOUT should have been presented. It's just simple basic follow the bouncing ball logic. If crows were the only animals on the planet killed by the blackout, then a previous and uninvestigated such occurrence DEMANDS scrutiny. I can't believe any half way intelligent person couldn't follow that simple line of thought. I know the story wanted to paint Clemente as the bad guy but she was such a shallow baddie. All that was missing was her wringing her hands together and cackling.

During the L.A. teams investigation of Benford's flashforward intel, several details from his Mosaic board have come to pass: the burned doll head, the name D. Gibbons, etc. Wedeck was given shit about doing an unauthorized investigation but his team is the ONLY one that found the conscious man at the stadium, plus the fact he was talking with ANOTHER person during the blackout. No other agency has anything like this, especially the CIA and their "China did it because, well, there's a lot of them" excuse. And is the CIA really that stupid to present that "theory" to Congress? And why wasn't HE given the same load of crap that Wedeck and Benford were given?

Yeah, I know Clemente has an ax to grind, yadda, yadda, yadda. Ba. Loney. It was poor writing, plain and simple.

And I hope next week they ask Congress why such a silly, reckless, waste of taxpayer funds investigation would warrant a visit by an assassination squad EQUIPPED WITH A ROCKET LAUNCHER!

After seeing Dominic Monaghan at the end of last week's episode, I was disappointed they left him out of this one. Gotta DRAG THESE THINGS OUT. (sigh) The Janis subplot - she's a lesbian (gasp, shock, horrors) and she's dating a hot chef - really felt like something more suited to a show like Grey's Anatomy. There's enough soap opera with Benford's alcoholism, will Olivia have an affair, will Aaron find his thought-dead army daughter, what's up with little Charlie, and will Nicole get through her crisis of faith? We even have will Demetri get married, and more importantly, will he die as foretold? Single Janis saw herself pregnant in her flash. Somehow dating just doesn't seem important at this point. Or perhaps it was just the flat way her story was told that's really the problem.

Let's get smarter, FlashForward folks. Please. I am so tired of TV shows with cool concepts getting cancelled and not being able to run their course to the end of their stories. Don't end up with that bunch.

ps: I see in the news that showrunner Marc Guggenheim has been fired, leaving co-developer David S. Goyer to oversee the "back nine" episodes. Goyer's a pretty busy film guy, so I hope he can juggle overseeing these last nine scripts and really give the show the "oomph" and attention to detail it deserves.